23 degree's

The internet has been down all day. I presume it’s the winter storm that’s coming in, so I’ll write this up now and cut & paste it later. The snow was supposed to hit yesterday but it didn’t start until today... so I did some more last minute errands, like going to the ‘local’ IGA store in Deming,  filled up with gas, etc... The snow fall this time around is supposed to be anywhere from 1-4 inches... which will be nice.  But the main concern for now is the dropping temps... high 20’s to the teens... The coldest this area will have seen in decades if the weather channel is correct. So I got some firewood ready and I’m ready to ride it out... We’re still much better off than the Northeast... 

I have been so looking forward to driving around in the snow, so I checked out this ‘public land thing’ a few miles away... 9200 acres of trees, trails and what not. There’s no hardcore 4 wheeling and that’s OK... I just want to drive down these trails when they’re all covered in snow. Should be beautiful. Here’s a view of the valley where the towns of Van Zandt, Clipper and Acme reside... you can just see some snow starting at the top of the mountains... 

This road should be so amazing when it’s blanketed in snow... This is my first foray into this area and I’ve only just scratched the surface... there are miles and miles of roads out here so it will be fun to explore a bit... Some of the trails I took reminded me of the Black Forest in Germany... the trees are so packed together that it was dark underneath their short canopy... 

Today I went and finished fixing the barn windows... some 6-7 panes of glass were missing throughout the place, so I replaced them... just to cut down a ‘little’ of the wind this winter week. The clean ones are the new ones  :-)

After that, it was up to the hayloft... There was a large ‘stack’ of hay up there from a long time ago, and nobody’s touched it since... the fear of large rats or some other critters living up there I guess. Well, it was previously discussed that it could make for insulation and I figured it certainly couldn’t hurt any. So I started by spreading all the loose stuff around the edges and into the corners until I got to full bales... and then I just laid those out like bricks. If this were a Ghost hunt, they’d be tripping on all the ‘Globes’ ... but in this case it’s just dust caught by the flash... a lot of dust.

And they were right... there was once something living in this mound of hay. There were little cubby holes or nests every where, and these... lot’s of almost perfect little ‘Lincoln Logs’... and you can see they’re a pretty good size... this was no rat family. And toward the end when I got to the back wall, I found some twice that size...  I have no idea what ‘they’ were... but they hadn’t been home for a while.

And the finished job... piled up about a foot, foot and a half, all around the perimeter and up to the staircase leading down. Like I said, not sure how much it’ll help in a typical, drafty barn... but it can’t hurt. 

Then it started to snow... those tiny, frosty type snow flakes... So while I was still ‘dirty’, I went for a walk down to the ‘illegal’ road with a hand saw..... in hand... ;-) ... past the ditch that once snared the tractor... to go ‘recycle’ me a Christmas tree. When ‘they’ cut through and bulldozed a path, ‘they’ pushed over a lot of trees including some pines... Why let all of them go too waste?  :-)  

So here is my little Christmas tree... Tomorrow I’ll bring it in and decorate it... that ought to jump start this years Christmas spirit...  Snows starting to pile up now and the internet is up so I'll post this while I can ;-)   Mouse adventure abounds... stay tuned...